Acclaimed filmmaker Kalpana Lajmi passes away at 64

Indian film actor-director and producer Kalpana Lajmi breathed her last in Mumbai on Sunday. Lajmi is known for her women-centric films like Rudaali, Chingaari, Ek Pal and Daman. The film actor was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2017, the news of her death was confirmed when the actress Huma Qureshi took to Twitter and informed early morning that Ms Lajmi died at about 4.30 am.

Apart from acting, she had directed her last film Chingari with Mithun Chakraborty, Anuj Sawhney and Sushmita Sen in 2006. The actress made her debut as an assistant director with veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal several decades ago.

Kalpana Lajmi made her debut as a director with the documentary film named, DG movie Pioneer in the year 1978. After that, she went ahead and directed several movies including, A Work Study in Tea Plucking (1979) and Along the Brahmaputra (1981).

Lajmi had also debuted as a feature film director in 1986 with Ek Pal (A Moment), in which she cast Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah. She produced the film, took part in the film writing and had written the screenplay for the film along with Gulzar.

Since Ms Lajmi was detected with Kidney cancer, several artists in the film world including Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Karan Johar, Alia Bhatt, Soni Razdan and Neena Gupta helped her out financially.

The Bollywood fraternity poured their condolence messages on social media, here are some of the many tweets…

You will be missed Kalpanaji. Was not your time to go..but may your heart now be at peace.????? . Those days while shooting Daman will be a treasured memory. #KalpanaLajmi Om Shanti. pic.twitter.com/mtteS4nAlZ

— Raveena Tandon (@TandonRaveena) September 23, 2018

Our dear beloved friend Kalpana Lajmi has gone to a better place. RIP my darling Kalpan. I shall miss you so terribly.

— Soni Razdan (@Soni_Razdan) September 23, 2018

Deeply saddened… at around 4:30 am today morning #KalpanaLajmi passed away .. May she rest in peace.

— Huma Qureshi (@humasqureshi) September 23, 2018

Also read: Tahira Kashyap detected with stage 0 breast cancer; Ayushmann calls her warrior princess